Diablo 3 - Reviews and More

Originally Posted by killias2
The atmosphere is lightyears beyond Torchlight 1, although, perhaps, TL2 will see some improvement there..?

Yep, have to agree that the atmosphere is spot on and what keeps me coming back and probably will for some time. Sounds are also extremely well done in places.

However, wrinkles are wrinkles and the game is far from perfect…. As others have said an 8.5 for the game itself (sans technical difficulties) and a 7 or 7.5 for the game (if you can't ignore the technical difficulties).

For myself, I haven't had as much fun in multi-player since Borderlands, a game I played in multi-player for many months.

Originally Posted by borcanu
what do the watch users say ? give your own score . I refused playing it after watching streams with it. so I'm N/A

Originally Posted by borcanu
how about storyline, music, pacing and atmosphere. I found all that gives immersion flat out mediocre. Might as well wait for torchlight if you want gameplay only.
Come on, they had commercials during NBA playoff matches, why are you so amazed with the sales.
I'm not taking blizzard off the list yet, I'm not a radical guy. But I doubt they'll make a good game when their focus is wrong.

Wait … who am I speaking to now? The borcanu of the past who refused to play the game after having watched a few videos or the borcanu who have obviously spent enough time ingame to dare comment on story, music, pacing and atmosphere of the game?

@JDR13

I agree that the campaign was a bit tutorial-esque for the first few missions, but I think 3/4ths is a significant exaggeration. In any case, RTS games tend to have something of a tutorial-flare in single-player, as every new missions adds a new unit or building or tactic or something. Very few just toss you in to roll around.

I agree that normal was too easy, but hard seemed right on to me. I guess they could've had something a bit in between, but I don't think either normal nor hard are game-breaking in their lack of/emphasis on difficulty.

In any case, what RTS campaigns are better? Starcraft 2 had variety, polish, and fun. I seriously can't think of a serious competitor. If there is one, maybe I need to buy it and play it.

I've spent about 2 hours with D3. Action RPGs are not my main 'thing' but I did play and complete both D1 and D2 and their related expansions. I'm not a Diablo series scholar or mega-fan, but D3 so far seems fun in that mindless action RPG way.

I do think that reports circulating around the net that interesting/useful loot appears too seldom may be accurate. I'm still hoping beyond hope that the whole 'auction house' idea isn't going to sap away at one's ability to find good loot often enough as needed by these types of action RPGs. But that nagging feeling in my gut tells me hope is futile.

I'm playing the game with NVIDIA 3D vision and it looks great. Out of all the games I have, D3 certainly looks the best and is easiest on my eyes.

Originally Posted by borcanu
how about storyline, music, pacing and atmosphere. I found all that gives immersion flat out mediocre. Might as well wait for torchlight if you want gameplay only.
Come on, they had commercials during NBA playoff matches, why are you so amazed with the sales.
I'm not taking blizzard off the list yet, I'm not a radical guy. But I doubt they'll make a good game when their focus is wrong.

Personally I think the music is good, though not on par with the original's stellar score. Pacing I also think is spot on so far (as mentioned, I am level 25 in Act II). You don't start getting shoulder equipment until like level 14 and amulets until something like 18, which felt odd, but the difficulty progression has felt just right to me. I also think the atmosphere is very good, right between the original and the sequel (balancing between the claustrophobic dungeon feel and the open world). There are other areas where I think the experience has been improved on quite a bit as well, such as companions and interaction with the world. It also feels like there is always something to spend your money on (whether it is crafting or socketing, buying new equipment from the auction house, etc.), so you never become too obscenely rich before needing to start building your cash stash over again.

I'd agree with the user above that a 8.5 seems about right. These reviews don't seem all that artificial to me. If you play Diablo 3 for the reasons that most people have played the series (action heavy, rpg light), I think it has come pretty close to hitting the nail on the head (as in to say Diablo remains the consummate ARPG experience). My biggest complaint would be the removal of skill points — skill trees is also a big one, but not as big as I have found that the rune system works fairly well.

For $60 people must love getting ripped off if they give it 9/10 or 10/10. Price should be a factor, as you wouldn't rate a $5 game on the same scale due to the expectation.

The game is expensive here - more so than a regular AAA title. If it had been cheaper and less restrictive (DRM..) I would probably have bought it for a bit of mindless fun. I enjoyed D1/2 - although I've grown apart form aRPG's since then. 5+ million sales? Wonder how much more they'll generate? I think a lot of people just bought it because it was Diablo 3, in the same way we all rushed to buy DA2 because it was …, well, DA2. That taught me to be patient.

No skill trees, always need an internet connection and action game. Not my kind of game. Can we call it an rpg or is it more a pure action game now? It sounds even less rpg then diablo I which I admit wasn't much an an rpg.

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
No skill trees, always need an internet connection and action game. Not my kind of game. Can we call it an rpg or is it more a pure action game now? It sounds even less rpg then diablo I which I admit wasn't much an an rpg.

I pretty much agree - D1 was my first "rpg" (!) (well, I'd played Ultima 1 or 2 on a friend' Apple 2c, but that was so long ago I can't remember anything ;-) For awhile I found smashing crates and hack'n'slash fun. But I grew tired of that soon enough. It was fun on private LAN with friends though - something which is no longer possible. I need an interesting story and interesting skills system on top of the hack'n'slash to be remotely interested.

I wasn't going to comment on the whole always online thing because I frankly don't care … except for the third time in the game's 9 days of being out, the Battle.net servers are down. That's 3 out of 9 or 33% of the available gaming evenings that I can't play because the servers aren't working.

That is NOT acceptable from a company the size of Blizzard. Not only that, it seems that for the second time now the only region that is down is the European one … bunch a bloody amateurs

Great review from GameBanshee. They seem to be on a roll. I do have to agree that D2 was most fun on the harder difficulties, although I never played with anyone online.

Originally Posted by killias2
@JDR13
I agree that the campaign was a bit tutorial-esque for the first few missions, but I think 3/4ths is a significant exaggeration.

I don't think it's an exaggeration at all, but I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as you did. I'll still play Heart of the Swarm, but I won't be anticipating it as much.

Originally Posted by killias2
In any case, what RTS campaigns are better? Starcraft 2 had variety, polish, and fun. I seriously can't think of a serious competitor. If there is one, maybe I need to buy it and play it.

I'm pretty sure that's going to be subjective. Anyways, my primary comparison was obviously going to be SC1, which I thought was *much* better for its time.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I don't think it's an exaggeration at all, but I'm glad you enjoyed it as much as you did. I'll still play Heart of the Swarm, but I won't be anticipating it as much.




I'm pretty sure that's going to be subjective. Anyways, my primary comparison was obviously going to be SC1, which I thought was *much* better for its time.

I think the story and the story presentation were much better with SC1. They actually gave a damn and did surprisingly well given scarce resources.

However, the vanilla campaign is good but not fantastic. For the most part, you just build a base and eradicate the enemy. The "control-a-few-units" missions are terrible in vanilla, but there were a few other good ideas.

Brood War, on the other hand, had a -great- campaign. I guess if anything bests SC2, it's Brood War. Lots of variety. Lots of fun. Even the "control-a-few-units" missions are great, except for one or two. On top of that, still a great job telling the story with such minimal capabilities.

That said, I've played a bunch of other RTSs. I really don't think the others are on the same playing field as either SC in terms of single-player campaign. For that matter, ditto with modding and general multiplayer mechanics. SC2 lacks chatrooms and LAN, so that's an issue. On the whole though, the system still seems a significant step up from Dawn of War 2, which is probably the closest competition.

Still, like you said, it's all subjective. People enjoy what they enjoy.

Originally Posted by borcanu
what do the watch users say ? give your own score . I refused playing it after watching streams with it. so I'm N/A

Waste of money, I suggest just picking up Torchlight 2 for 20 dollars on steam. Had this game for a week and I already can't be bothered to log in. And I'm someone who's been playing the series since Diablo 1 was released.

You guys really believe SC2 and D3 was in development for all these years? I reckon Blizz just waited till when they think it's good time to release.

And in terms of price, I don't think it's overly expansive — I paid over $100 for DA2, and only paid around $70 for D3.

Originally Posted by purpleblob
You guys really believe SC2 and D3 was in development for all these years? I reckon Blizz just waited till when they think it's good time to release.

Diablo 3 has been in development since before 2005, which was the year Blizzard North was disbanded because their version of Diablo 3 "did not meet expectations". They then brought in developers who had no idea about Diablo to make a Diablo game, which is part of the reason the game a) has taken so long to develop, they had to familiarise themselves with the concept of Diablo first and b) feels like Diablo-lite.

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
No skill trees, always need an internet connection and action game. Not my kind of game. Can we call it an rpg or is it more a pure action game now? It sounds even less rpg then diablo I which I admit wasn't much an an rpg.

Good question. The extent you can shape your character seems very limited to me now. Somehow, Eidos' Revenant, popped into my head.

Originally Posted by killias2
That said, I've played a bunch of other RTSs. I really don't think the others are on the same playing field as either SC in terms of single-player campaign. For that matter, ditto with modding and general multiplayer mechanics. SC2 lacks chatrooms and LAN, so that's an issue. On the whole though, the system still seems a significant step up from Dawn of War 2, which is probably the closest competition.

I think a lot of RTS fans would disagree about the SC2 single-player campaign. In all honesty, it simply wasn't that good. I'm not saying it was "bad", but it's certainly not the grand experience you're trying to make it sound like.

On the other hand, I think the genre has been somewhat weak in recent years. For that reason, I can understand why some people would rate SC2 as high as they do. Personally, I haven't really enjoyed an RTS game since Supreme Commander. I still haven't played CoH yet though…

Originally Posted by JDR13
On the other hand, I think the genre has been somewhat weak in recent years. For that reason, I can understand why some people would rate SC2 as high as they do. Personally, I haven't really enjoyed an RTS game since Supreme Commander. I still haven't played CoH yet though…

The genre's been so crap lately that I know a fair few people who still rate Age of Empires 2 as the greatest rts ever.

Ah, Supreme Commander. There's another one sitting on my shelf unplayed. :/

EDIT: Heads up. There is a Company of Heroes sale at GG through the weekend. 80% off = $9 for the complete PC version. Tempting!